State OKs money for other more expensive, less effective projects

While hopes appeared to dim last week for
Cincinnati’s long-planned streetcar system due to a series of
legislative setbacks, local leaders say the project is far from dead.

“With any large project, I always
preface anything by saying that it’s always a very long process and
there are always obstacles,” says Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, one of
several City Council members who’ve voiced hopes that the project will
continue in some form.

“We have to keep our eyes on the prize,”
she adds. “We’ll just have to look at ways to reconfigure the route and
look at changes in the basic operating model that will still result in
a successful project while reducing costs. That’s what’s happening now.”

One option being considered is
constructing a smaller loop connecting downtown to Over-the-Rhine
first, and delaying a planned segment to the uptown area near the
University of Cincinnati. Qualls calls the latter segment “a critical
component” to the streetcar’s positive economic impact, one that
eventually would be built.

The latest obstacles for the project,
which already survived a 2009 ballot challenge, came in a cascade last
week. It began with the March 23 meeting in Columbus of TRAC (the
state’s Transportation Review Advisory Council), charged with
overseeing project development for the Ohio Department of
Transportation. Headed by Jerry Wray, ODOT’s director, the eight-member
board proposed withholding nearly $52 million it tentatively approved
last year, citing the state’s budget problems.

Meanwhile, across the capital, State
Sen. Shannon Jones (R-Springboro) inserted an amendment into the $7
billion, two-year state transportation bill that would prohibit using
any state or federal money for streetcars. Back in Cincinnati, City
Councilman Charlie Winburn (R-College Hill) introduced a motion stating
the city should suspend any further planning for the project.

Collectively, it seemed to be the swan song for the $128 million project.

While Jones’ amendment and the state
transportation bill were passed by the General Assembly and now awaits
Gov. John Kasich’s likely signing, the other moves aren’t yet set in
stone.

Winburn’s motion is unlikely to pass a
City Council vote, freeing the city to continue planning a smaller,
more affordable streetcar project.

TRAC’s recommendation, which will be
voted on by board members on April 12, is itself coming under fire.

William Brennan, one of two board
members that expressed misgivings at the move during last week’s
meeting — Antoinette Selvey-Maddox, from Cincinnati-based Management
Partners Inc., was the other — says too little information was
presented to support cutting off $37 million in future funding of the
project while reneging on $15 million in funds it had already promised
last year.

“I don’t know if the staff looked at
anything, other than needing to cut the budget, to give us enough
information that this is the only way to address the problem,” says
Brennan, who also serves as commissioner of Toledo’s Division of
Building Inspection.

ODOT spokeswoman Melissa Ayers says
there were many factors to its recommendation to TRAC, but budgetary
concerns were the chief motivation.

“TRAC can only, by law, be
over-programmed by 20 percent,” she explains. “The way things are
going, by 2017, we’ll be 105 percent — or $1.7 billion — over. We have
far more on the books than what we have the funding for, and that was
the main reason we recommend cutting that funding.”

But the streetcar system is far from the
largest ticket item on TRAC’s list of new projects, although it was
projected to generate the highest positive economic impact, according
to TRAC’s own rankings based on transportation and potential economic
development.

The streetcar project rated 84 on TRAC’s
100-point scale, far higher than any other project being considered —
and well above several highway projects and a new, $86.2 million bridge
over the Ohio River near Steubenville. The bridge project, with a
ranking of26, is moving forward.

That, Brennan says, was a major source of concern for him.

“For such a high-ranking project to get
its funding pulled while other, lower-ranking projects go forward, it
certainly gives you pause,” he says. “I’m questioning the whole process
right now. What other alternatives did the staff look at? Why was this
project singled out? I don’t know, and those are the questions they
need to answer before we vote on April 12.”

According to TRAC policies and
procedures, the board is allowed to decide to fund or de-fund any
project, regardless of the ranking, and consider “other factors.”

Politics, however, is not supposed to be one of those factors.

With Wray — a recent Kasich appointee — heading the board, the specter of politics has been raised.

In appointing Wray, a former ODOT
director under Republican governors George Voinovich and Bob Taft,
Kasich praised his new director as someone who “would not play politics
with his position.” Wray was quick, however, to echo Kasich’s views on
cutting funding to the 3C-Connector and other rail projects, including
the streetcar.

Also, TRAC came under attack March 25
when the group planned a private conference call of board members to
discuss Wednesday’s action, which is a violation of Ohio public meeting
laws and a charge leveled at Kasich several times during his three
months in office. After refusing to allow media members in on the call,
it later canceled the call when The Enquirer threatened legal action.

Additionally, Ayers says TRAC took more
than 3,200 pieces of correspondence in regards to the project in
consideration before recommending streetcar funding cuts. The vast
majority, she says, was opposed to the project. But public opinion isn’t mentioned as acceptable factor in the group’s policies for selecting projects to fund.

The TRAC board was stunned by the correspondence, the most it had ever received, Brennan says. He took it with an ounce of salt.

Streetcar opponents were “clearly
organized,” he adds. “When we looked at the responses, business leaders
were clearly in favor of the project. It was very clear the other
letters were the result of an orchestrated effort.”

That TRAC considered the letters at all, Qualls says, flies in the face of its mandate.

“It’s a bunch of hockey puck. The TRAC
process was established to solely evaluate projects on their technical
merits,” Qualls says. “What they’ve done is taken an objective,
technical process that was meant to remove politics and inserted
politics. If that’s the way they want to do it, they should be straight
and tell everyone they’ve politicized the process because that’s what
they’ve done. Don’t treat everyone as if they’re stupid. Of course,
it’s politics.”